Collaborative Applications

Chapter Overview

This chapter will focus on two types of collaborative applicationsdiscussion forums and newsletters. Technically speaking, virtually all Lotus Notes applications are considered collaborative in nature because they enable usersoften separated geographicallyto work together, share information, and achieve a common goal.

Some of the common types of collaborative applications include

• Discussion forum
• Newsletter forum
• For Sale forum
• Q&A forum
• Project notebook

By the end of the chapter you will have learned

• Elements of a discussion forum
• How to create and manage Response documents
• How to trigger client-side emails
• How to trigger server-side emails
• How to create scheduled agents
• How to create a button to attach files
• How to automatically populate fields on a form based on another form
• How to create a cascading menu
• How to create subforms
• How to create shared fields
• How to create shared agents

This chapter includes step-by-step instructions for two Lotus Notes applications.

There are many types of collaborative applications, and the ones you implement will vary based on the business needs of your company. But for all their variety, they share a common purposeto facilitate sharing, dissemination, and discussion of information. However, for purposes of this chapter, we'll look at two applications used to share informationa discussion forum and a project control notebook.

For this chapter, we'll review the architecture and design elements with each project because the rules are project specific. At the most fundamental level, both of these applications allow users to capture and share information.